Muse Releases NFT Album, Lens Protocol Talks NFT’s
- CryptoPunks had the most trading volume on OpenSea in July
- Otherdeed, Bored Ape Yacht Club land NFT pool, becomes fastest NFT pool to reach $1 billion in sales volume in July
The web3 world this week saw a collaboration between luxury jeweler Tiffany & Co. and the CryptoPunks collection, while Solana-focused NFT marketplace Magic Eden added support for Ethereum tokens hours before a major Solana hot wallet hack.
Blockworks recaps other notable stories that caught the eye of Web3 Watch.
Mouse music goes on the chain
British rock band Muse’s upcoming new album will be released as a limited edition NFT (non-fungible token) on the Polygon-powered platform Serenade, as reported by The Guardian. “Will of the People” is Muse’s ninth studio album, scheduled for release on August 26.
Serenade allows music fans to use their Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets to trade and collect NFTs tied to digital collectibles and limited edition digital pressings. Digital pressings, explained Serenade founder Max Shand, “provide full-length audio and unique artwork, along with unlockable rewards and a list of first owners that publicly connect fans with the artists and releases they love.”
“It’s premium vinyl for the web,” he tweeted.
Back in 2020, Muse also worked with Dapper Lab’s CryptoKitties project to create digital collectibles.
Muse’s NFT-packaged album is the first new format to be added to the UK’s Official Charts Company (OCC) charts in the UK and Australia. And it’s the first release on OCC where the vendor, in this case Serenade, has been approved as a digital retailer for chart returns, meaning sales on the platform contribute to official numbers.
NFT Worlds takes the ‘N’, ‘F’, ‘T’ out of Minecraft
Microsoft-owned Mojang, the game studio behind the hugely popular Minecraft, recently decided to ban blockchain technology and NFTs from the title.
The move disrupted NFT and token integrations built by Web3-based gaming platforms such as NFT Worlds. The team’s associated token, WRLD, immediately fell around 65%.
NFT Worlds responded by creating their own game and platform based on many of the core mechanics of Minecraft, and they called it Miecra – after removing the letters that make up “NFT” from the name of the inspiration.
“This is not a rewrite of some open source Minecraft clone, which would likely violate the EULA [end-user license agreement] or still risk legal action, this is from the ground up. This transition will also come with a public facing brand identity change that is more player friendly,” the company tweeted, adding, “this is a web2 vs web3 battle.”
The updated WRLD tokenomics white paper outlines how the startup will motivate participants to keep playing, while increasing the utility of their digital assets as they build reputations as players, creators or builders in the gaming world.
KuCoin launches an NFT ETF
Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin launched an ETF linked to blue-chip NFTs such as Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC).
KuCoin’s new ETF is a tether-dominated product that buys into derivatives of certain digital assets. The portfolio will initially cover fractional tokens representing partial ownership of BAYC, CryptoPunks, Koda NFTs, The Sandbox deeds and Ethereum Name Service domains.
The fractionalized tokens are issued by Fracton Protocol’s meta-swap NFT fractional exchange aggregator. However, KuCoin’s ETF will not trade on traditional exchanges – the exchange has instead launched a specialized “Trading Zone” where users can trade the fund.
The NFT ETF Trading Zone, according to a statement, aims to “enhance the liquidity of NFT assets and lower the investment threshold of blue-chip NFTs for over 20 million users.” It also intends to eliminate concerns related to crypto wallets, smart contracts and NFT marketplaces.
Q&A with Web3 social networking platform Lens Protocol
Lens Protocol is an open source technology stack at Polygon for building decentralized social networking applications.
Unlike Web2 social networks like Facebook and Instagram, developers can build crypto-powered social media apps, marketplaces, recommendation algorithms, and more on top of the Lens Protocol. And it is powered by NFTs.
One contributor, for example: Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist protest and performance art collective, created the NFT collection “Proof of Protest” to raise funds for seven US-based organizations that support women’s reproductive rights.
The fundraiser, run by UnicornDAO and public charity Endaoment, raised more than $110,000 in less than 72 hours after its July 7 release. During that time, the collection created 13,201 NFTs sent to more than 9,700 unique wallet addresses.
Blockworks reached out to Lens Protocol, powered by Aave, to learn more from Christina Beltramini, Head of Growth and Partnerships at Aave Companies.
Blockwork: How do Lens Protocol users interact with the applications?
Beltramini: Currently, Lenster, a new decentralized and censorship-resistant microblogging and social networking service, is one of over 100 applications built on the Lens Protocol leveraging NFT technology, which allows users to fully own their data and open new ways for creators to monetize their digital content and ownership. their relationship with the local community
With Lens, each user’s followers, communities and content are linked to their NFT profile and can be ported into any new app powered by the protocol, giving creators the ability to be truly multi-platform and go directly to the community.
The protocol also provides a user- and creator-first basis for any application to plug into, giving people full ownership of their profile, content and relationship with the community without overriding power over how they control their content or data.
Blockwork: How did Pussy Riot’s “Proof of Protest” NFT compilation go?
Beltramini: The NFTs were available to be collected directly on Lenster, which uses Lens’ collection module. As soon as they were collected, the posts became NFTs by being marked as publications on Lens. Especially for this decline, Lenster ensured that creators, such as Pussy Riot, were able to express their views safely without the risk of being suspended or shadow-banned.
Creators are currently experimenting with monetization tools for creators on Lens using the “collections module”. The latest example of this tool being used to generate profit (or in this case a donation) is Pussy Riot.
They raised more than 150,000 MATIC ($138,000) over three days through three different drops. In addition, the commitment to the open and limited editions has competed with blue-chip NFT projects. They were also among the top 20 most active NFT contracts on Polygon – even compared to high usage NFTs for games like Aavegotchi and Cometh.
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Ornella Hernandez
Blockwork
Journalist
